Kogan.com Ltd (KGN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO of Kogan.com; and David Shafer, CFO and COO of Kogan.com. [Operator Instructions] So I'll just start the results presentation and please, after the results presentation, will I have time for your questions and answers. Thank you very much. Speak to you shortly.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for our first half FY '22 Results Investor Briefing. I'm Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO of Kogan.com, and joining me here today is David Shafer, Kogan.com's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. David and I are proud to present the group's financial and operating results for the first half of FY '22, where we'll take you through a few of the key wins and initiatives for the period, and we will be happy to answer your questions after the presentation. We have come a long way since we listed on the ASX in 2016. Back then, the Australian online retail market was $17 billion in sales, and we were an ambitious fish in a big pond. Fast forward more than 5 years since we listed, and even though Kogan.com has grown exponentially, the size of the opportunity in front of us have also become much bigger. Looking at our business, there's one thing that encapsulates the sheer scale of this opportunity and the progress we're making. There are now more than 4 million active customers in the Kogan Group. Not just someone who browses on our mobile site or app, but an [indiscernible] that has transacted with one of our brands in the past 12 months. This is what we obsess over. This number would have been hard to grasp when we IPO-ed in 2016, and even more mind boggling when I was explaining to my mom in her kitchen bench in 2006, while her house was filling up with boxes. Zooming out from our business, to state the obvious, the Australian online retail market has significantly increased in size over the last 2 years, reaching $43.9 billion in sales in FY '21 according to IBISWorld, and in the 12 months to December 2021, NAB estimated that Australia spent $52.9 billion on online retail. Kogan.com significantly contributed to the industry's growth over the last 6 months, with our group reporting its highest gross sales ever in a single half. And we have set our sights even higher, with a goal of achieving $3 billion in annual gross sales in FY '26, all whilst aligning our customers each and every step of the way. The COVID situation has continued to cause disruption to all industries around the country and the world. The various lockdown supply chain disruptions, logistical interruptions and labor shortages have cause havoc. I'm in constant awe of our team who, from the beginning of the COVID pandemic, remained focused and found new and innovative ways to support our customers when they needed our help most. By making the most in-demand products and services more affordable and accessible, we make sure all our customers could get what they needed at a great price delivered quickly to their door. There is no better example of providing greater choice [indiscernible]. It's to continue [indiscernible] demonstrates the capability of the [indiscernible]. It has been now, 3 years since we launched Kogan Marketplace, and [indiscernible] demonstrated strong customer and seller engagement with over $200 million in gross sales over the first half and continuing to grow strongly. The launch of Kogan Marketplace in New Zealand in mid-2021 is a huge opportunity, and we're still in the very early days of Kogan Marketplace. At our AGM in November last year, we unveiled some of the new and innovative initiatives our team have been working on behind the scenes to bring more choice, more value and even faster delivery to over 4 million loyal customers. Our Kogan First loyalty program reached new highs, scaling its members to over 310,000 members in February 2022. Kogan First members get such a great deal and have stronger loyalty and repeat purchase behavior. We are progressing well towards our goal of 1 million Kogan First subscribers by FY '26, and we continue to deliver more benefits for members of our rewards program. If you're a frequent online shopper, you're missing out on a lot of value if you're not a Kogan First subscriber. Kogan Delivery Services is our last-mile delivery service that was launched in June last year, and has already delivered over 150,000 orders directly to customers. It's still very early days, but the feedback from our customers has been great given the faster delivery times, and we're excited about scaling this even further. As we progressively reduced inventory levels over the last 6 months, we saw a temporary impact to our margins. Constant supply chain interruptions and increased logistics costs meant it was a very challenging environment in which to have the right level of inventory. This has been impacting our bottom line in the short term. We believe these challenges are transitory, and that our diversified portfolio of businesses will soon deliver the operating leverage we have been known for pre-pandemic. On Slide 5, you can see the strong headline performance and trajectory of the business. Given the volatility over the COVID period, the compound annual growth rate from the first half of FY '20 to the first half of FY '22 is a useful metric to consider the underlying growth of the business. Shortly, I will hand over to David, who will discuss these financial results with you in more detail. We're continually evolving the business to respond to the demands of our customers and to strengthen our competitive advantage. Our growing portfolio of businesses provides diversification of income, making us more resilient. We're always looking for new ways to delight our customers and we're not the kind of team to sit still for long. While our customer numbers are growing, at this stage, our platform represents only around 3% of Australian online retail trade. We believe that we've barely scratched the surface. We see many more opportunities. We remain 100% focused on giving the Kogan community access to the most in-demand products and services with market-leading offerings. As many of you are long-term shareholders, you have seen this slide many times before. Our virtual cycle is an important aspect of the Kogan.com business, and we will continue to talk about it loudly and proudly. Each step of our virtual cycle continuously works towards our mission of making the most in-demand products and services more affordable and accessible. We have continued to build our customer base, which now consists of over 4 million group active customers. Because of the trust and reach of our platform and the size of our community, we continue to be more attractive to potential suppliers, Marketplace sellers and partners, and can, in turn, continue to onboard new brands, new sellers and broaden our product offering. This allows us to grow and gives us the commercial clout to secure a broader offer and improved value to the Kogan community, which then further grows our group active customer base who wants access to these ever-improving deals. We consistently have more to offer our customers across many aspects of their lives, from the most in-demand products to mobile phone plans, Internet, holidays, insurance, superannuation, credit cards and [indiscernible] [ year ], we'll be rolling projects to further enhance our Kogan First membership program, improving delivery solutions and even more improvements to our online shopping experience. Our team works hard to ensure that the shopping experience we deliver is first class. So if you look beyond the range, price and speed that we are achieving for our customers, what is the actual shopping experience like on the app or the website? We have the pleasure and challenge of developing industry-leading technology and feedback loops to improve the shopping experience from millions of shoppers to make it pleasant and fast. We use machine learning and AI at Kogan to ensure that our customers get the tailored shopping experience they deserve. Our proprietary algorithms and AI technology means that we are communicating the right product or service to the right person at the right time. Our sophisticated platform goes beyond the retail experience. Behind the scenes, our team has developed a platform that can be leveraged by our partners and integrate it into their own business models. Further, we have also created proprietary systems to reduce fraud and optimize marketing spend, making us smarter and stronger as a business and leading to the best deals for our customers and partners. We have strategically continued our marketing investments in order to grow our customer base. The growth in group active customers achieved over the first half was underpinned by this investment, which is also expected to have ongoing long-term benefits to our business through repeat purchasing from the incremental active customers and growth in Kogan First subscribers. These loyal paid members provide a solid foundation for the company's long-term success. For perspective, even though we made a decision to increase marketing spend, our platform and loyal customer base continued to drive most of our traffic. Free traffic sources still represent the vast majority of visits to our websites which demonstrates that satisfied customers continue to return to Kogan.com. This is a key metric for the platform we have built. If you're shopping online, there are 3 things you are looking for: Choice, value and speed. Combined, they create the ultimate convenience. It's been a long time since I started this business in my parents' garage with just a handful of products. Today, when a customer visits one of our sites, they choose from more than 14.3 million products across thousands of product categories. So whether it's a Fortis treadmill or a 55-inch QLED smart TV or a matte black Hans Wegner elbow chair from our Exclusive Brands range, or a skin care product from our third-party brands or one of the millions of products on the Kogan Marketplace, if you are looking for it, we not only have it available, but we have it available at an amazing price and ready to deliver quickly to your door. This makes Kogan.com more relevant to more customers, and it makes us the first and best choice for Aussies and Kiwis to find and buy what they need. This huge increase in the scale of what you can now buy on Kogan.com is another driver for the growth in active customers and increased loyalty and repeat customers. The fact that more than 50% of our orders are made by customers who have previously shopped with us over the past 12 months is a strong endorsement of the value we provide to customers. Customers are continually delighted and keep returning. As Kogan First becomes a larger part of our business, we expect this number to continue to grow. What's also really exciting here is that these customers are increasingly providing product reviews, meaning, people new to online shopping can see what previous buyers thought of a product. We also act on these reviews and ratings together with internal data sources to improve our purchasing decisions and ensure we have the best value and range on offer to the millions of visitors to our platform. Once you've been able to shop for virtually anything you need with a few clicks or taps while sitting on your couch, why would you go back to battling parking lots and crowds? with a huge range, great value and first-class service, Kogan.com and Mighty Ape are well-poised to continue delighting customers in Australia and New Zealand. We've been developing our own last-mile delivery service, which we quietly launched in June last year. Kogan Delivery Services is currently operating in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. We're using smart software to provide the most efficient delivery routes, reducing the average time between when your item has been dispatched from our warehouse to its delivery at your door. Customers who have experienced it so far have been able to track their delivery vehicle once the order has left one of our hubs, knowing exactly when to expect delivery. We've delivered over 150,000 orders since launch. It's early days, but feedback from our customers has been great, and we're excited about scaling Kogan Delivery. Our warehouse network now spans 29 locations across Australia and New Zealand, bringing in warehouse products closer to over 4 million Aussie and Kiwi shoppers. Being closer to our customers supports reduced delivery times on a huge range of products. The success of Kogan Marketplace has resulted in the platform achieving gross sales of over $200 million for the first time ever in a half. I talked earlier about the importance of range. Customers want to know that if they go to Kogan.com that they'll find what they need. Kogan Marketplace has been a huge driver of this, enabling us to grow infinitely without needing to tie up incremental capital in more inventory. Kogan Marketplace is a true win-win as it gives our customers incredible choice and enables thousands of sellers to access over 4 million customers and grow their business. Our business started with just one exclusive brand. Now, more than 15 years later, our Exclusive Brands remain a pillar of our company and a highlight of our customer offering. Today, we have more than a dozen exclusive brands in our stable, and they all represent ridiculously good value for our customers. While cycling an incredibly strong period last year, Exclusive Brands continues to perform for our customers and our business. We've started talking more about Kogan First, and for good reason. Kogan First is something I get a lot of great feedback about from our customers. It's more than just free shipping. Subscribers of our loyalty program are offered exclusive deals on top of everyday discounts on our platform, Kogan First Rewards credits and priority customer care. In February, Kogan First has grown to over 310,000 subscribers, and our goal is to reach 1 million by FY '26. Kogan First subscribers have received approximately $13.5 million worth of subscriber benefits in the 7 months to January 2022. In order to support our initiatives and investments into subscriber benefits, we have recently raised the Kogan First subscription to $59 per annum for new members. Any smart shopper in Australia should be a Kogan First subscriber. I've talked a lot about the products people can get delivered to their door. Many of these customers are enjoying the same great value in some of their most essential services, things like mobile internet access, home energy and credit cards. During the half, we made tweaks and improvements across some of our verticals which saw strong active customer growth across those verticals. As we're continuing to the second half of the year, we will continue to develop, improve and review these offers across a wide range of verticals, and customers will see these changes and benefits very soon. The biggest vertical is Kogan Mobile Australia, which has recently returned to growth and has a strong pipeline of initiatives to further enhance customer value this year. David will now take you through the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Ruslan. The strength of the Kogan.com business model can be seen in the top line growth we achieved over the first half. To put this in context, just before our IPO in the first half of financial year '16, the business delivered $104.7 million in gross sales. In the half just ended, we delivered $698 million in gross sales. In that 6-year period, we have almost 7x the size of the business. I will go through the drivers of our group's performance further in just a moment. Despite cycling exceptional growth in the prior year and the continuing challenges experienced from operational disruption from the current COVID situation, we achieved our highest ever half of gross sales of $698 million. Our diversified supply chain, portfolio of businesses and business preparation over many years has enabled us to meet growing consumer demand when supply chains came under pressure. Revenue growth of 1.3% year-on-year to $419.5 million reflects the contribution of Mighty Ape, our Kogan First loyalty program, as well as Kogan Marketplace, Kogan Energy and Kogan Mobile New Zealand. The continuously accelerating Kogan Marketplace compensated for a decline in third-party brand sales through that period. There is some shift happening in our business from inventory-based sales to marketplace sales. Over the short term, this can look unusual. In the long term, it means we'll be more capital light as a business, meaning, we can further scale without a corresponding investments in inventory. We also saw a decline in Exclusive Brands, which had extreme growth in the prior year and is re-basing to a more normal level of growth. As you have heard, we're attracting more and more customers to our platform. Our continued investment in marketing activities has grown group active customers by 9.4% to over 4 million. 4,071,000, to be precise. This comprised Kogan.com active customers of over 3.3 million and Mighty Ape customers of over 750,000. As more of these savvy shoppers engage with our platform for the first time, our marketing investment is also expected to have ongoing long-term benefits to our business through repeat purchasing from these incremental group active customers and growth in Kogan First subscriptions. Kogan First subscriptions scaled significantly during the half as more and more customers recognize the significant value offered by our loyalty program. Kogan First delivered subscription revenues of $5.9 million during the period, up from $4.2 million in the same period last year. This growth in revenues was less than growth in subscriptions due to price changes across the periods. A year ago, Kogan First cost $99 per year. It was reduced to $49 during the period, and has since been raised to $59. Exclusive Brands and third-party brands have cycled extreme growth in the prior year, and experienced a decline in revenue of minus 11.2% and minus 33.5%, respectively. However, Exclusive Brands' revenue of $185.3 million for the half had a compound annual growth rate of plus 38.1% since the first half of FY '20, reflecting the strong long-term growth trajectory of this division. Exclusive Brands also achieved gross profit compound annual growth rate of plus 32.9% since the first half of financial year '20, resulting in a contribution of 37.5% of the group's overall gross profit in the current period. So this was achieved through ongoing investment in Exclusive Brands inventory to broaden our range and meet consumer demand from the growing base of active customers despite cycling extreme growth in the prior period. In contrast, the success of Kogan Marketplace has resulted in gross sales increasing by 28.7% compared to the prior corresponding period and a compound annual growth rate plus 94.6% since the first half of FY '20. The platform continues to resonate with sellers, with Kogan Marketplace having increased the number of sellers significantly with a strong pipeline of new sellers ready to be onboarded. From a financial perspective, our economics with sellers continues to improve. We also plan to grow the opportunities for our sellers to gain prominence on our platform by enhancing our advertising platform. We are continually improving our proprietary Marketplace platform, which enables the company to achieve ongoing exceptional growth without needing to invest in inventory. The growth of Kogan Marketplace means that customers have more choice than ever, and we look forward to replicating the success of the marketplace in Australia, in New Zealand, following its launch there in June 2021. The company's goal is to reach 1 million Kogan First subscribers by financial year '26, and we are investing in marketing and subscriber benefits to achieve this goal. The Kogan First loyalty program grew to over 274,000 subscribers as of the 31st of December '21, with Kogan First subscribers demonstrating stronger loyalty and repeat purchasing behavior than non-subscribers. Currently, Kogan First subscribers stand at over 310,000. It's important to appreciate that the growth of Kogan First represents a short-term investment by the business for long-term benefits. We have grown Kogan First through strong investment in marketing and significant benefits to subscribers. While we intend to continue the great benefits, the subscription model of Kogan First means that we don't need to continue to invest in marketing to attract these subscribers at the same pace as non-subscribers. So we believe the economics of Kogan First for our business will improve over time and deliver for our business as well as our customers well into the future. For the 6 months as of the 31st of December 2021, Mighty Ape's trading showed strong sales over the Christmas peak trading period and end of financial year sales period, with revenue and gross profit of $93.8 million and $21.6 million, respectively. The Mighty Ape team and operations are progressively and successfully being integrated into the Kogan Group as we work together on new product ranges, operational enhancements, including last-mile deliveries and back-end systems like our ERP and automation. Since its launch in June last year, Kogan Delivery Services has delivered over 150,000 orders to customers. Kogan Delivery Services allows customers to live track their delivery vehicle once the order has left the warehouse to when it is delivered to their door. Variable costs, predominantly consist of warehousing and selling costs. Costs have largely been high given the levels of high inventory and increased logistics costs relating to COVID interruptions. As the business progressively reduces its baseline level of inventory, we expect variable costs to reduce as a proportion of overall sales. In order to reward and incentivize key talent and align their interest with our shareholders, the business has made strategic investments in team members. Long-term incentives remain in place and people costs have increased year-on-year, as a result. The half included equity-based compensation expenses driven by the award of options after the company's AGM in November 2020, which are being expensed as per the accounting treatment described in the Notice of Meeting of the 2020 AGM. Other costs include an additional $1.4 million of website costs to build out new features, improve performance and accommodate increased customer and marketplace seller activity. Statutory NPAT and statutory EPS of negative $11.9 million and negative $0.11 per share were materially impacted by various items detailed in the next annexure 2 of this presentation, which describes all the adjustments to adjusted EBITDA in detail. Adjusted EBITDA, adjusted NPAT and adjusted EPS, which excludes unrealized FX gains, equity-based compensation and other one-off items, including the profit from the sale of bitbuy.com domain was $17.4 million, $4.8 million and $0.04 per share, respectively. Mighty Ape had a strong trading performance over the last 6 months, which saw significant revenue growth from its acquisition in December '20. The half saw the launch of Jungle Express, a last-mile delivery service, which is owned and operated by Mighty Ape, replicating Kogan Delivery Services in Australia. Like Kogan Delivery, Jungle Express increases the speed of delivery in New Zealand and allows customers to live track their orders once they've left the warehouse to when they are delivered. Mighty Ape operations are progressively integrating into the Kogan Group to deliver better value, choice and faster delivery to customers. We have high expectations for the ongoing success of Mighty Ape as we work to optimize group purchasing decisions and enhance logistics and operational systems over the course of the second half. On the next page, we can see the gross profit mix for the year. As referred to earlier, Exclusive Brands generated 37.5% of the group's overall gross profit and continues to deliver the largest gross profit contribution across the business. Mighty Ape is now the group's second largest contributor, accounting for 19.9% of the group's gross profit. Kogan Marketplace third-party brands, Kogan First and Kogan Mobile are all material contributors to overall gross profit. Kogan First reflects subscription revenues. Despite only launching in late FY '19, Kogan First is already contributing 5.5% of our overall gross profit, indicating the growth opportunity in Kogan First. Kogan Mobile Australia has returned to growth at the start of 2022, and we have high hopes for this division over the coming year and beyond. The group had a cash balance net of drawn debt of $39.7 million as of 31 December 2021. The group held $158.5 million of inventory in warehouse at the end of the period, of which more than 94% of the group's inventory was aged less than 365 days. Total inventory was $196.8 million which includes inventory in transit, and reflected a decrease of 13.6% from 30 June 2021. Financial liabilities reflect the unrealized FX loss recognized against forward contracts, which is non-cash. Trade and other payables reached a seasonal high following the end of financial year peak sales period. Acquisition payables reflects the likely payment of Tranches 3 and 4 of the Mighty Ape acquisition. The group achieved a strong operating cash inflow of $61.7 million at 31 December 2021, driven by improved working capital as inventory levels reduced. During the period, the group funded the Tranche 2 payment in respect of the Mighty Ape acquisition of $29.9 million and paid down its trade advance by $49 million, ending the period with net cash of $39.7 million. I'll now hand back to Ruslan to discuss our outlook and some further detail on the exciting things to come in the second half of FY '22.

Thanks, David. We're pumped about the opportunities ahead as we continue to grow our platform and expand our portfolio. Turning to Slide 27, it's important to remain focused on the opportunity available to us. The online retail market continues to grow rapidly in Australia, and Kogan.com has consistently taken more market share. On top of that, most of you already know that online retail is in its infancy in Australia. NAB estimates that online retailers are mere 14.4% of total retail sales, far lower than comparable economies. But online retail is growing quickly, and Kogan.com is taking market share in this fast-growing market. There remains a long growth runway ahead, and we're excited about the future for our business, our people and our customers. Kogan.com is a dynamic portfolio of businesses. There is always more that we can do and new ways we can delight our loyal customers. January 2022, unaudited management accounts showed gross sales growth of 11.9% above January 2021 and a compound annual growth rate of 27.4% since January 2020. With multiple attractive growth opportunities available, the Kogan.com Board has decided not to declare an interim FY '22 dividend to retain cash for business investment and growth purposes. Over the second half of FY '22, we expect further growth in Kogan First subscribers heading towards the FY '26 goal of 1 million subscribers, continued growth in Kogan Marketplace, continued strong contribution from exclusive brands, further integration of the Mighty Ape team and operations and continued growth in Mighty Ape, and improved operating leverage consistent with the company's long-term track record. Even after 15 years, it feels like we're just getting started. I'm so proud of our team who are relentless in our pursuit of excellence and our obsession with delighting our customers. At our AGM earlier this year, we announced our 5-year target to achieve $3 billion in gross sales and 1 million Kogan First subscribers by FY '26. We can do this by continuing to reinvest in our customers, ensuring that our customers get the best deals on a wide range of products delivered quickly and efficiently. In the first half of FY '22, we have progressed towards this goal and the trust and confidence we've built with our customers sees them coming back to our platform time and time again. The Kogan First member benefits are delighting customers, and the investment we are placing in this wonderful program will have long-term benefits as loyal customers continue to repurchase. Together with David and our Board, I am looking forward to the second half of this financial year with confidence. This concludes our presentation. David and I look forward to meeting with many of our shareholders over the coming days. For those of you who have any questions or are interested in hearing more, please stay with us for the Q&A. Thank you for your interest in Kogan.com.

[Operator Instructions] Maybe to start off some questions from Annabelle Diamond from UBS. There was a significant investment in Kogan First and technology. Can you provide any other color on these investments?

Well, Kogan First is a key initiative of the business, and it's a wonderful loyalty program because it's a clear win-win. It's a win for the customer, and it's a win for our business because we're rewarding loyalty with amazing -- an amazing platform, but also additional discounts over and above our already low prices. There's Kogan Rewards in terms of various cash back initiatives the customers get free shipping, free express shipping and so on. So it's essentially building a loyal community of customers and the platform surrounding that, so there's been a significant amount of investments in our tech platform overall, but also the platform surrounding our Kogan First initiative. We view these things as extremely important to our business to be able to show the right product to the right person at the right time, whilst also having the right promotional incentives and reasons to keep coming back. So the business is very focused on those areas.

I'll stay with Annabelle's questions and maybe 1 for you, David. Why was underlying EBITDA about $4 million below the pre-released result? It appears to be at the GP line.

Thanks, Annabelle. Can you hear me okay? .

Yes, loud and clear.

Okay. The reason for that is that under the audit, there was an adjustment to other income reflecting the sale of Bitbuy domain, which has moved beneath the GP line into other income and affected both GP revenue and adjusted EBITDA. The adjustment -- it was both moving that amount beneath GP, but also increasing the amount.

Thanks, David. One more question from Annabelle, and maybe again to you. How are you thinking about inventory? Are you comfortable with the current position? Do you need to carry any additional inventory due to supply chain disruption?

We currently have a full level of inventory, and as mentioned in the presentation just released, we are looking to progressively reduce our baseline level of inventory, increased improved working capital and transition to a slightly more capital-light business driven by the growth of the Kogan Marketplace. So we think that, that strategy over the next 6, 12 months to gradually reduce our level of inventory is going to improve our operating leverage as well and return the business' operating leverage to some of the levels of operating leverage we saw pre-pandemic.

A couple of questions from Owen Humphries at Canaccord. Variable costs were at about 4.5% of revenue. What's the right level post inventory and COVID normalization?

So variable cost consists of both merchant fees. So the fees that we pay credit cards and PayPal, for instance, as well as our storage fees, so the amount that we pay to store stock in the warehouse. The first component of that will be directly in line with gross sales. So the more we sell, the higher our variable costs for merchant fees will be. It's directly variable. The second component, we're looking to reduce as a percentage on our gross sales through transitioning to be a more inventory-light business via the growth of the Kogan Marketplace and the reduction of emphasis on inventory base sales and holding less baseline level of inventory. So we are expecting that to reduce over the coming 6 to 12-month period.

I'll stay with you, David, another question, Owen's second question. Can you please go through the gross profit and EBITDA adjustments from the January trading update?

I think that's the same question that Annabelle referred to earlier. The principal adjustment between the January update and today's update is the movement of the other income line, which reflects the sale of Bitbuy domain beneath the GP line into other income, and increasing the amount of income associated with that line.

A couple of questions from Mike Younger at Prime Value. What does the EBITDA from Kogan First look like after considering operating costs and benefits from the additional sales it generates?

So it's important to note that Kogan First is a 2-phase business division, and there is a significant amount of investment upfront in building the subscription base to the levels that we have already and to grow from here. The principal investment is in marketing, so it's a market to onboard Kogan First subscribers, and then the secondary expense or investment is in benefits. So the benefits will be an ongoing part of membership, but the upfront investment in marketing is immediately removed once we have acquired those customers. So after the investment phase of growing Kogan First customers is done, the economics surrounding Kogan First memberships changes significantly. And Kogan First members purchased much more frequently than non-members at a lower margin to non-members because of all of the benefits associated with their membership. But they also pay the membership fee of $59 a year, which has helped compensate for all the benefits that they accrue as part of their membership. But given that they purchase a lot more regularly, there's also a lot more gross profit associated. Gross profit absolute dollars associated with their memberships for the business. Ruslan, got anything else on that one?

That covers it pretty well.

Maybe I'll direct this question towards Ruslan. Second question from Mike. What's the grand plan for delivery services, and what level of investment OpEx and CapEx is required?

Yes. So delivery and logistics is a very important part of e-commerce, and one that we're very focused on as a business. And Delivery Services has now been operating for a few months. We launched it earlier last year, and it actually worked out to be great timing in the sense that other couriers started to experience a lot of interruptions, and we're able to keep customer experience and -- up at very high levels, and getting people their deliveries very quickly. It is, for our business, a very dynamic area of the business where we continue to find new and innovative ways that don't actually require a lot of CapEx to build out that business model. It is very technology-focused. The ability for customers to be able to receive timely notifications to have the app that shows exactly where the driver is and when, so a lot of that is technology focused rather than infrastructure-focused.

Question from Tim Piper. Can we get a sense on the pricing outlook heading into the second half? And are you successfully passing on some of the current cost inflation?

It's a very dynamic environment. It's so hard to predict things in the current environment. There's pallet shortages, chip shortages, shipping costs have gone up. But while on the same hand, our business is of the biggest scale it's ever been. We have more buying power and leverage with our suppliers and manufacturing partners, so we are doing our absolute best as a business to keep costs down and to pass whatever savings we can on to customers. So yes, there's definitely inflationary pressures out there. There's some that will be unavoidable, but there's some where we can use technology and our efficient supply chain to keep costs down and pass that on to our customers. In general, if you look historically, our business -- while we want the economy to be flourishing and doing as well as possible all the time, during periods when customers are tightening their belts tend to be periods that benefit our business a lot, because we would love an environment where customers do more research. Customers that are perhaps shopping with some other retailers that they've become accustomed to shopping out over the last 30 years, if they start doing a bit more research about the product, if they look at specifications, if they look at pricing, if they compare prices and so on, we tend to benefit in that sort of environment. So we're focused on the business model, making that as efficient as possible, and that delivers us our competitiveness in the market and price leadership. And the more frugal customers become in the wider environment, the more that's going to benefit our business.

Thanks, Ruslan, and we've got a couple of questions on inventory. First one is from Aryan Norozi. More than 94% of inventory was less than 365 days old versus more than 98% pre-COVID. Are you comfortable with the quality of your inventory? And are you seeing any increased discounting?

So we are comfortable with the quality of the inventory. More than 94% younger than 365 days is a healthy result. The amount that's over 365 days includes a lot of seasonal items like heaters, which may well come back in the season, so there's no cause for concern there. And obviously, that's been under thorough review by the auditors. In terms of increased discounting, I mean, you can see that we did have a lower margin on our inventory base sales in the December period that reflected some of what Aryan was referring to. We expect margin to normalize over the current period upwards.

And just staying on the inventory question from Peter Richardson. Can you give some clarity on what actions are being taken to address the previous inventory issues that you face?

Yes. So the previous inventory issues was a combination of many events. We had a bit over a year ago, through COVID and lockdowns, very increased demand, that caused us as a business to order our more inventory because we wanted to service the demand and the customers. Then there was a slowdown in demand, which caused our warehouses to not be able to fit all the inventory that we had ordered into the warehouses, which then caused us to have significant issues with detention charges to the shipping carriers because we weren't able to collect the containers. Now, obviously, an extraordinary set of events in large due to an extraordinary macro environment in which we are operating. As a business, we have become a much stronger and better business as a result of that. Building out the various systems and technology around that to detect things sooner to do things slightly differently. We would probably have made similar decisions, but we'd be able to address them and deal with them in a better way. So not a fun time for the business, and certainly challenges that we wouldn't have wanted to have to overcome, but we're much stronger for having to overcome them.

Thanks, Ruslan. Another question from Aryan. Marketplace commission was around 6% in the first half versus typically 8%. Can you explain why the difference?

That would relate to the outperformance of particular sellers that might be on specific deals. What we can say is that the economics associated with marketplace sellers has improved through the passing on of some of the costs that we are now able to pass on to sellers. So we should see an improvement over the coming period given that we're now passing on costs like payment fees to sellers, whereas previously, we absorbed those things.

Also maybe another one for you, David, from Aryan. What was the $5 million gain on sale disclosed in the January '22 guidance?

That was a bitbuy.com domain transaction.

Question from Tim Piper. Is Kogan First revenue recognized all upfront when the membership fee is paid, and should revenue be the same as gross sales for that?

Kogan First membership revenue is recognized progressively over the course of the duration of the membership. So if somebody purchases an annual membership, it's recognized progressively over the duration of the year. If someone purchases a monthly membership, it's recognized in that month. So it's not recognized upfront for annual memberships, and therefore, gross sales is different to revenue because gross sales reflects the upfront cash payment, whereas revenue is only recognized progressively over the duration of the membership.

Question on GP margins. Is some of the GP margin decline driven by freight costs, and therefore, expected to be temporary? Should GP margins reverse to historical levels going forward?

Some of the GP margin, imposed by increased freight costs, especially inbound international shipping, which did cause higher costings and higher landed costs. We do expect that to translate ultimately into higher purpose prices in the market, so we are extending it [indiscernible] some of the pressure on margin that we saw last half.

I'm just conscious of timing, and we've kind of already gone slightly over. Maybe a question for Ruslan. You said that the goal for FY '26 of $3 billion of gross sales and 1 million of Kogan First members. What do you see are the key things that are going to help you get to that target?

Yes. So it's very important for us to focus on the various elements associated with what makes a wonderful customer experience, and that is range, price and speed. So we are working hard in the business across all of those. We have over 14 million products now listed on our site. So if we spoke a year ago, we could probably be in a position where we said, look, anything you search for on the site, you'll be able to find because we have such a huge product range. Now, not only will you be able to find that product, but chances are we've got a handful of sellers competing against one another to win the customer. So making the products better, driving prices down and increasing that range, whilst providing the really good value. And then on top of that is the platform and speed. So our customers need to know that they're going to see the right product at the right price, at the right time, make it really easier to purchase, and then it's going to arrive at their door very quickly. So you would have heard a lot of talk about Kogan Delivery Services and the developments that we're doing there. So all of the elements of the business are focused on those 3 things, improving them for our end customers and ultimately, that's what it's all about. If we keep servicing our customers, delighting them, ensuring that whatever they want to buy, we've got at an incredible price delivered quickly, that will enable us to achieve our long-term goals.

Ruslan, on that note, thank you very much for your time today, and David as well for presenting the half year results and going through the Q&A. Unfortunately, we went over time and didn't have enough time to answer all the questions. There was a long list. I tried to kind of pull out the key ones. If anybody has any other questions, please contact me, [email protected] , and I'll help facilitate some answers. Thank you again for your time. Terrific to see the growth continuing that chart right at the end, which shows the half-on-half revenue and the big lift up in '21, and the continued growth of that base in '22, I think is quite telling in terms of the growth you're executing on and the opportunity you're delivering on. So I look forward to seeing further growth come through and seeing the company achieve its FY '26 goals.

Thanks, everyone, all the best.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you. Yes.